The nation remained polarized by the fraud-marred 2008 presidential election won by Serzh Sargsyan, with large public protests and violent government reprisals continuing well into 2009. The global economic crisis caused layoffs in the mining industry and a decline in remittances from Russia, heightening public frustrations. The government sought to suppress critical debate over these issues, and journalists faced intolerance, hostility, and violence.

The government maintained
control over most broadcast media, the primary news source in a
poverty-afflicted country with poor newspaper distribution and low Internet
penetration. The Council on Public Radio and Television, composed of
presidential appointees, continued to set editorial guidelines for H1 state
television, ensuring the station generated pro-government reports. Most private
radio and television stations were owned by politicians and businessmen with
close ties to the government, leading to significant self-censorship by
journalists and limited critical news reporting on the airwaves, CPJ research
showed.

One independent news
outlet remained off the air. In February, a Yerevan appellate court dismissed
lawsuits filed by the media outlet A1+ that sought reconsideration of its
broadcast license applications. The station, pulled from the airwaves in 2002
in reprisal for its critical news reports, has seen a dozen license
applications rejected by the government’s broadcast regulator. (A1+ has
continued operating as an independent online news agency.) The Strasbourg-based
European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2008 that the regulator violated the
European Convention on Human Rights by repeatedly rejecting the applications
without explanation.

Other forms of government
obstruction were reported on a regular basis. In January, bailiffs in a Yerevan
court prevented journalists from attending the trial of seven opposition
activists charged with illegal participation in 2008 protests, according to
local press reports. In August, the police chief in the northwestern city of
Gyumri prevented a crew from Shant TV, a private station, from covering
protests in front of the mayor’s office concerning the closing of a local market,
local press reports said. That same month, parliament issued new media
accreditation rules that authorized suspensions of journalists whose reports
“do not correspond to reality” or that disrespect the “lawful interests, honor,
and dignity” of members of parliament, according to local press reports.
Parliamentary staff members were given wide discretion to administer the rules.

Violent attacks against
journalists continued amid a climate of impunity. On March 13, security guards
at the State Linguistics University in Yerevan knocked freelance photographer
Gagik Shamshian to the ground and kicked him after he tried to photograph
students protesting alleged faculty corruption, according to press reports.
Shamshian was hospitalized for six days with internal bleeding. A security
guard was briefly questioned by police but was not charged.

In April, three
unidentified assailants attacked Argishti Kivirian, editor of the independent
news Web site Armenia Today, outside his home in Yerevan, according to
press reports. The assailants beat him with clubs, leaving the editor
hospitalized with a concussion and severe bruising. Kivirian’s colleagues and
family linked the attack to his professional activities, noting that he had
received prior work-related threats. Lusine Sahakaian, a prominent defense
lawyer and the editor’s wife, criticized police for failing to collect evidence
at the crime scene, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
reported. Armenia Today’s Web site was plagued by denial-of-service
attacks throughout the year—including a series of attacks that coincided with
the assault on Kivirian.

A third attack also
generated no arrests and little evident police investigation. Nver
Mnatsakanian, a prominent commentator for Shant TV, was punched and knocked to
the ground by two unidentified men as he was walking home in Yerevan on the
evening of May 6, according to press reports. Mnatsakanian, who was forced to
cancel his show for two days, criticized police for claiming the attack was the
result of mistaken identity.

Attacks spiked in May,
several of them related to a Yerevan mayoral election that was marred by
allegations of fraud. Gohar Vezirian, a reporter for the opposition newspaper Chorrord Ishkhanutyun, was beaten by supporters of pro-government
candidate Gagik Beglarian after she informed an election commissioner that the
candidate’s supporters had unlawfully entered a polling station in Yerevan,
according to the news Web site EurasiaNet. Election officials stood by when pro-government
supporters threatened Nelly Gregorian, a reporter for the independent daily Aravot, confiscated her camera and erased photos at a polling station in
Yerevan, according to the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting
(IWPR).

Law enforcement officials
were either ambivalent or hostile to the press. Col. Hovhannes Tamamian, a
senior police investigator, told reporters at a May 8 press conference that
police were working hard to arrest assailants in the attacks—but he suggested
journalists should arm themselves in defense, according to international press
reports. In August, when prosecutors were angered by media criticism of an
investigation into the activities of an outspoken environmental activist, a
spokesman for the prosecutor general warned journalists that the office
“regularly sends publications to police for assessment,” IWPR reported. The
comment was seen as a veiled threat that journalists would be harassed if they
continued reporting on the case.

Arman Babadzhanian, 33,
editor of the opposition daily Zhamanak
Yerevan and a critic of law
enforcement officials, was released from prison in August after doctors
diagnosed a brain tumor, according to press reports. In 2006, he was sentenced
to four years in prison after publishing an article that questioned the
independence of the Yerevan prosecutor’s office. Babadzhanian had been
convicted of forging documents to skirt military service; he did not dispute
the allegation, but he and press freedom advocates, including CPJ, said the
prosecution was selective and retaliatory. Babadzhanian underwent surgery
outside the country and was recovering in late year.